Federal Investigation
The FBI and Secret Service began investigating the incident and on September 20, it was revealed that they were questioning David Kernell, a 20-year-old economics student at the University of Tennessee and the son of Democratic Tennessee State Representative Mike Kernell from Memphis. The handle used by the hacker when making his post at 4chan pointed to him, although this evidence was inconclusive because of the frequent pranks pulled at that board. The hacker's proxy service provided its logs, which pointed to Kernell's residence.
FBI agents served a federal search warrant at David Kernell's apartment in Knoxville. Agents spent two hours taking pictures of everything inside his apartment. Kernell's three roommates were also subpoenaed and expected to testify the following week in Chattanooga. The obstruction of justice charge stems from an allegation by the FBI that Kernell attempted to erase evidence of the crime from his hard drive. Kernell's father told Wired that he was aware that his son was a suspect, but he did not ask him anything about it over concerns that he may have to testify in court.
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